Restoring reputation of FDA is a challenge

WASHINGTON (AP) — Tainted peanuts. Unsterilized syringes. Salmonella in Mexican chili peppers. A contaminated blood thinner from China that sent patients into life-threatening shock.

Every few months, the Food and Drug Administration goes into fire-brigade mode, rushing to get control over another safety crisis. The agency that regulates products worth 25 cents of every dollar spent by U.S. consumers seems overwhelmed by its own mission.

Some say the FDA is broken, and others want to break it up — by moving food safety to a new office.

“You’ve got an agency that quite frankly is either nonfunctional, or dysfunctional, or maybe all of the above,” said Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., who as the longest-serving member of Congress, has investigated many agencies, including the FDA.

Others, even some critics, see tentative improvements. Many defenders acknowledge the FDA is struggling.

“‘Broken’ is the kind of word that’s sort of a fighting word,” said Dr. Frank Torti, the cancer researcher serving as acting FDA commissioner.

Restoring the FDA’s reputation will be a major challenge for an Obama administration that strode into town promising competent government.

The decline didn’t happen overnight. There’s no single, simple cause. In 2007, an independent group of science advisers concluded that the FDA was in danger of failing in its mission. “American lives are at risk,” said their report. It wasn’t the first alarm.

As the pharmaceutical and food industries went global in recent years, the FDA fell behind on inspections. Its legal powers failed to keep up with fast-changing industries. Its own scientists said it grew too cozy with drug companies and tuned out signals of safety problems.

Money for research grew scarce. Internal computer systems were allowed to decay, although they are essential to monitoring drug safety trends or blocking shady imports.